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One of the most popular movies in the U.S. is a terrible teen rom-com called “ The Kissing Booth ,” and it’s not in theaters. Instead, this Netflix Original with its paltry 17 percent critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes , shot up to become the No. 4 movie on IMDb , before more recently dropping down to No. 9. Its leads, Jacob Elordi and Joey King, also became the No. 1 and No. 6 most popular stars on IMDb’s StarMeter, respectively, shortly after the film’s launch. The secret to the movie’s success, however, is not just a combination of teenagers’ questionable taste in entertainment and the power of Netflix’s distribution — though both play a major role, clearly. Instead, it’s that “The Kissing Booth” is tapping into a built-in audience: teenage Wattpad users. Yes, Wattpad.

Cyrus Radfar Contributor Cyrus Radfar is a founding engineer of AddThis , which was acquired by Oracle. More posts by this contributor Dear United: Autonomous cars will pull you out of your seat With autonomy, commercial real estate could go mobile In the past week, the 45th president has Twit-tacked Amazon three times and, potentially, cost their shareholders over $40 billion in market cap or just more than one Greek economy. At the heart of our current President’s criticism is a claim that Amazon is making a mint and leaving a *failing* U.S. Postal Service holding the bag. It’s not a new critique from the Twitterer-in-Chief, but it is one that’s worth unpacking given the crippling effect technologies have had on the USPS — where email is even more reliable than a carrier undeterred by “ snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night. “ Is it failing? “Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer?” This infantile question was posed by President Trump on Twitter in December 2017. While it’s not clear what exactly prompted Trump’s criticism, the tweet did spark a wave of debate as to whether the Postal Service is indeed failing and, if so, whether Amazon is to blame. First of all, it’s true that the Postal Service is “losing billions of dollars a year” – $2.7 billion in 2017, to be more precise . In fact, the Postal Service has been losing money for over a decade . And the USPS does have a curious relationship with Amazon. While competitors UPS and FedEx charge the e-commerce giant $7-$8 per package, USPS only charges for $2 for the service. However, as with most stories, that of USPS is more complicated.

Over 13 million augmented reality apps built using Apple’s ARKit have been downloaded since the release of iOS 11 on September 19, 2017, according to new data from app intelligence firm, Sensor Tower, which took a look at the state of the AR app ecosystem, now that it’s had time to become more established. It found that – as with many new developments in the app world – games have been seeing the most traction, in terms of ARKit adoption. Nearly half (47%) of the ARKit-only app downloads worldwide during the first six months were games, which has been leading the ARKit-only app installs since launch. A month after iOS 11’s release, ARKit-only apps had then surpassed three million downloads, with games accounting for 35 percent of downloads. Six months later, games have grown to 47 percent of the now 13 million ARKit-only app downloads. Games, of course, helped to popularize augmented reality before ARKit’s launch. Thanks to the worldwide craze that was Pokémon Go, mobile users became familiar with AR’s potential to enhance gaming as they tried to catch the animated Pokémon appearing in the real world, visible only through their smartphone camera’s viewfinder. The app seeing the most free downloads is the virtual pet simulator AR Dragon from Australia’s PlaySide Studios. The top paid and top grossing ARKit-only app is CamToPlan Pro , a paid AR measuring tape app from Tasmanic Editions. If you’re wondering why the top app isn’t Pokémon Go, it’s because Sensor Tower’s analysis focused on ARKit- only apps, not ARKit- compatible apps that added some AR functionality over the past six months. Pokémon Go is part of that latter group. But if you were to combine all AR apps, including ARKit-only apps and those that added new AR functionality when ARKit was released, then there would be well over 2,000 AR apps on the App Store today, says Sensor Tower. This matches up with Apple’s officially released figures , too. Other popular ARKit-only app categories include utilities (like AR measuring tapes or eBay’s tool for finding the right shipping box ), entertainment apps (like the AR children’s book, My Very Hungry Caterpillar ), lifestyle apps (like the now numerous apps for helping consumers shop furniture by placing items in their own rooms via AR), photo and video apps (like Holo ), and educational apps. In addition to games, ARKit-only lifestyle apps have seen sizable download growth, as well, more than doubling their share of AR app installs from 5 percent to 11 percent on the heels of releases from IKEA , Houzz , Wayfair , and others.

Ubergizmo Tidal Gets Android Auto And Amazon Fire TV Support Ubergizmo Rap mogul Jay-Z's music streaming service Tidal is now accessible through a couple of additional platforms. It may not have a lot of subscribers in comparison to other services such as Spotify and Apple Music but it has come to develop a dedicated ...

The Register Microsoft reveals 'limitations of apps and experiences on Arm' – then deletes from view The Register Microsoft published a webpage listing Windows 10's "limitations of apps and experiences on Arm," earlier this month – and then mysteriously pulled it. The document appeared at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/porting/apps-on-arm-limitations ... and more »

The Register Microsoft guts doc on 'limitations of apps and experiences on Arm' The Register Microsoft has altered a document that listed Windows 10's "limitations of apps and experiences on Arm." The document appeared at https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/uwp/porting/apps-on-arm-limitations last on Thursday, February 15. It now ... and more »

The Register Six things I learned from using the iPad Pro for Real Work™ The Register Real world test Last year Apple transformed the fortunes of its iPad. In the spring the iconic fondleslab looked so neglected, it was declared "done". Sales were half of what they had been at the iPad's peak. Then in June, the biggest software update ... and more »

The Register Six things I learned from using the iPad Pro for Real Work™ • The ... The Register Real world test Last year Apple transformed the fortunes of its iPad. In the spring the iconic fondleslab looked so neglected, it was declared "done". Sales were half of what they had been at the iPad's peak. Then in June, the biggest software update ... and more »

Macworld UK 5 reasons why you shouldn't buy a Mac mini Macworld UK Yep, you'll need to buy yourself a monitor, mouse and keyboard before you can use the Mac mini. This effectively means it's not quite as cheap as it seems, since it doesn't come with a few essential elements. In fairness we should add that not coming ... Apple Macintosh Then & Now, How the 'Mac-hine' Has Evolved The Quint all 2 news articles »

Macworld UK 5 reasons why you shouldn't buy a Mac mini - Macworld UK Macworld UK It's not been updated in over three years and you don't even get a monitor. Here are five reasons why you shouldn't buy a Mac mini. Apple Macintosh Then & Now, How the 'Mac-hine' Has Evolved ... The Quint all 4 news articles »

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